This specification relates to digital information retrieval, and particularly to processing search results to facilitate search operations.
The Internet provides access to a wide variety of resources, for example, video files, image files, audio files, or Web pages including content for particular subjects, book articles, or news articles. A search system can select one or more resources in response to receiving a search query. A search query is data that a user submits to a search engine to satisfy the user's informational needs. The search system selects and scores resources based on their relevance to the search query and on their importance relative to other resources to provide search results that link to the selected resources. The search results are typically ordered according to the scores, and provided in a search results page.
A user often uses a search system to search for consumer goods and services. Often the user wants to know whether there are any nearby stores or offices at which the user can examine or purchase the product, or meet with a person to discuss the product or service. The user may thus issue a query for the product or service and include some location information, such as the user's city of residence. While this can lead to search results that may satisfy the user's need for information, the user may need to refine the search query multiple times before finding satisfactory information. Furthermore, the user may be unaware that there are additional stores or offices that may be closer to the user than a store or office that the user decides to visit.